Advancement Project

June 16, 2010

A Shared Fate: The Impact of Arizona’s New Immigration Law

On July 30, 2010 you leave work a few minutes early in an attempt to beat traffic. Anxious to get home, you leave your company shirt on; complete with paint stains from a hard days effort. Incredibly thirsty, you reluctantly decide to stop at a convenience store before you begin the 30 minute commute home. Back in the car, satisfied and finally on your way home, you notice the police lights flashing in your rearview mirror. As you pull over you wonder what you did wrong. Unbeknownst to you, as you walked out of the convenience store, a police officer identified you as a potential “illegal immigrant” living in the United States. Perhaps it was your tarnished work cloths, your brown skin, or maybe the clunker of a car that you happen to be driving; nevertheless, this is an example of the racial profiling that could occur as a result of Arizona’s new immigration law.

In April of this year, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed a controversial bill on immigration; proving that history repeats itself, often for the worse. Senate Bill 1070, set to take affect July 29th, orders foreign citizens to carry their “alien” registration documents with them at all times and requires police to question people if there is reason to suspect they are living in the United States illegally.

The bill was signed in an attempt to suppress the supposed increases in the rates of issues associated with illegal immigration. For instance, supporters of the issue often refer to the rise in violent and drug related crime. For example, the killing of two Phoenix police officers in 2007 and the recent slaying of a cattle rancher near the Mexican border have been citied repeatedly as justification for passing the bill. Yet, despite these two instances, according to statistics from the FBI and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, both the number of undocumented people crossing into the U.S and the number of violent crimes has actually decreased in the past several years..

Ironically, the first legal challenge to the new law was issued by a Tucson police officer, Martin Escobar, who claims the law is the result of “racial bias and anti-Hispanic beliefs and sentiments”. In response to the civil rights violation claims, Governor Jan Brewer stated, after signing the bill, that she has been working with legislators to amend the bill and strengthen its civil rights protection, preventing law enforcers from “solely considering race, color, or national origin in implementing the requirements”. The Governor’s statements have left many wondering exactly how law enforcement will identify potential “suspects.”

What is happening in Arizona, is a byproduct of a long history of “undocumented people” in the United States. What is most interesting is the inverse relationship between labor shortages in the U.S and the influx of illegal immigration from Mexico. For example, during World War I the need for Mexican labor increased sharply as American workers were sent oversees to fight. Yet, during The Great Depression, Mexican workers, both documented and undocumented were deported by federal authorities in cooperation with state and local officials. The trend continues today amidst the economic turmoil in the United States. Now, state governments are attempting to take control of immigration policies while using the Brown population as a scapegoat rather than accepting the repercussions induced by Wall Street’s finest.

So goes Arizona, goes the rest of the country as there is currently a law similar to Arizona’s called “Secure Communities,” which is effective in 20 other states. This law also promotes racial profiling, allowing state and local police to check the fingerprints of any individual they are booking into jail with the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration databases.

The exploitation of cheap labor is a familiar refrain in this country. No, I’m not referring to those self-evident truths “that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights which include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” I’m referring to the immigration policy in this country, the slave trade.

The fate of the Black and Brown population is intertwined. What this relationship demonstrates is that we are all connected. We must understand that what happens to one group of people affects us all. The struggle for immigrants' rights should not – and cannot – be separate from the broader struggle for social justice by people of color and poor people. There is far more that unites than divides the oppressed people in this country, and recognizing this shared fate and coming together to build multi-racial and multi-ethnic alliances is the quickest and most sustainable way for us to achieve broader social, racial, and economic justice.

Immigrants serve as a "miner's canary" for our society, because the injustice they experience is an early warning sign of much larger injustices that threaten all of us. If we pay attention, immigrants' struggles for a better quality of life can foretell the continued existence of racial, social, and economic problems that threaten the entire country's well-being.

This blog was written by staff at Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization that advocates for racial justice.